#20- BLESSED UNREST

Nine stories down the sidewalk squeals with a twenty something woman and some goofy guy she clearly has a crush on. I got an unexpected call last night from someone who wants another chance...or maybe the first official opportunity he has to take a chance with me. Funny. I just finished a song about him but was only able to write it once I thought that chance had passed. Maybe it was just waiting to spring up on me. Dunno. Something to noodle about.

A computer in the other room makes sounds resembling politicians in the bottom of a tin bucket and I am suddenly so aware of the undying sounds of this city. It never ends. I wrote here on my bed earlier to the familiar rapping of a jackhammer in the apartment upstairs. The steady confusion growing in my brain as I tried to prepare for the gazillionth class I've taught this past month. Why must they jackhammer a floor just so they can raise the rent to ten thousand a month which nobody in their right mind should be spending if they are lucky enough to have it...particularly now. When I say ten thousand I am not kidding. That's how much it will be and the sick woman who pleasures herself with the title "landlord" can put yet another notch on her bed post. Three lemons in a row. Again. Some corporation will pay it for the six months when some disillusioned family transfers here from Chicago. Then the family will run somewhere they can afford groceries.

I have a stack of books on Buddhism. Another stack on stand up comedy. Oddly they all go together in this unofficial Masters Degree I've concocted for myself. The ffinish line will hopefully leave my bills paid, my heart beating at a normal pace, and callouses as thick as leather boots. I can't seem to read any of these books at the pace I deem necessary not to fall off the rope I'm clinging to with every ounce of strength I have.

One night I took myself out of my rat race to Penny's Open Mic. It was a treat for me. I hadn't been there in two months and the emails began to trail off. Uh oh! I'd missed too many weeks and was slowly fading from their fabric...or so I thought. I arrived and was pleased to be there but had a different head set on. I'd committed to doing a piece I hadn't done in years. Short and hilarious. Just how I like it. Penny is a dream and puts me up in the fourth spot so I can leave early and sleep like the ol' lady I've become. So much of being there is simply about being there. I watch the performers deeply and watch the audience as well.

John Murdock's family was there. Incredible. I thought they were there for Thanksgiving. They were there to celebrate his two year anniversary of being sober. I met his sister for a brief moment. Beautiful blond, newly engaged. Clearly overly excited to see her brother perform. Very thrilled to see Penny...who is dating John. I could tell she thinks Penny is super cool. In a way a young newly engaged woman would feel about Miss Lower East Side. I saw so much in just a minute or two. Could they see me see them? I felt privileged. Penny and John. People I want to keep knowing.

After my set a woman came up to me while I waited to enter to bathroom. She said, "Great set. You know...this is fine...but you really outta make something of yourself". I looked at her. I was in the Twilight Zone. I wasn't sure what to say. I said, "I'm filming my own TV show Friday". She paused, "That's good....but you really outta make something of yourself". I turned around and entered the tiny bathroom which suddenly became my Nirvana.

Things are shifting. Money is staying in peoples pockets. People are moving in together to save themselves. I ate a meat pie for a buck fifty today. We are peeling back the onion skin to reveal the raw. We don't believe we could be headed for ruin, yet we could be...maybe...maybe revolution. Maybe a surprise. Maybe Obama is Santa Clause and all of this was a dream. My mother is 65 and I want her to be done with teaching. She's done her duty and it's time for her to write and have a house in Cape Cod.

I grasp onto the ideas of THE SECRET fully. Lets all do that. Even if you think it's bullshit. Lets tell the universe we are ready to receive abundance. All of it. Lets make something of ourselves.